


Fic: When Everything Collapses (Steve/Tony, Avengers)

by tracy7307



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-04
Updated: 2012-06-04
Packaged: 2017-11-06 21:54:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/423682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tracy7307/pseuds/tracy7307





	Fic: When Everything Collapses (Steve/Tony, Avengers)

**Title** : When Everything Collapses  
 **Rating** : R  
 **Fandom** : Avengers, movie-verse  
 **Pairing** : Steve/Tony  
 **Word Count** : 1,552  
 **Summary** : Grief eventually finds its way to Steve. Tony is there to comfort him.  
 **Content labels** : Grief, hurt/comfort  
 **Disclaimer** : Not mine. I make no money off of playing with these characters.  
 **AN** : Thank you to [](http://seascribe.livejournal.com/profile)[**seascribe**](http://seascribe.livejournal.com/) and [](http://demon-rum.livejournal.com/profile)[**demon_rum**](http://demon-rum.livejournal.com/) for cleaning this up and for the hand-holding. Any remaining errors are my own. Title taken from this quote by Colette: "It's so curious: one can resist tears and 'behave' very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer... and everything collapses."

 

It’s not the sun’s heat on his shoulders that rouses Steve, but rather the sleep-warm skin of Tony’s back pressing against his chest.

The rising sun glows yellow-orange as the light spills in the bedroom window. Tony sleeps through it and Steve’s fairly amazed that Tony hasn’t stirred, shifted, or sat up once to tap at the tablet on the nightstand.

He smiles to himself, small and secret. It seems all it takes for Tony to sleep the whole night is the gratuitous use of Steve’s serum-shortened rebound time (not that Steve’s complaining. Not at all). Only took three weeks of dating to figure this out.

Tony shifts onto his back, rolling over with a small huff. Steve watches as Tony’s chest rises and falls, arc reactor casting blue into the sunlight to create a remarkable synthesis of color.

He lets his fingers trail over the reactor, lightly touching the silvery-white scarred skin that surrounds it. Last night the reactor made Tony’s skin glow white-blue as Steve sucked Tony’s cock; it threw blue hues against Tony’s throat, his head thrown back as Steve made love to him and made him come all over his chest. It made Steve ache in such a way that he forgot all shyness, trailed his fingers through pools of white come and babbled _beautiful, god, Tony, you’re so beautiful like this_. And as much as Tony runs his mouth, Steve was surprised to find that when Tony comes, not a word falls from his lips.

Quietly Steve climbs out of bed, slipping into discarded pajama bottoms and t-shirt (Tony’s AC/DC shirt – as crude as they are, Steve finds great joy in pummeling the punching bag to _Back in Black_ and _Highway to Hell_ ) and pads down the hallway toward the kitchen.

At this point of the morning Tony’s usually on his second batch of coffee, but since he’s sleeping so peacefully Steve thinks perhaps he’ll surprise him and have it ready, and perhaps some food as well. It’s been, well, around 70 years since Steve’s fried up some breakfast and suddenly craves the sound and feeling of eggshells cracking under his hands.

First to the cabinet for coffee. Steve thinks of Tony and his bleary, bloodshot morning eyes, fumbling around with sleep-deprived hands until he finds the outrageously priced Indonesian coffee ( _“Seriously, Tony? It’s made from_ wild tree cat droppings _? Who thinks up this stuff?”_ ) He shakes his head and flings open the cabinet to locate the overpriced poop coffee, pulls down the airtight coffee canister, flips open the lid…

And it’s empty.

Well, crud. Time for Plan B – maybe Tony has backup coffee. He pushes back further in the cabinet, shoving aside clear jars that contain what Steve _thinks_ might be pasta – they’re orange, red, and green, yet pasta-shaped, and when did food need to exist in Technicolor? Finally his hand hits something round and metal. Bingo.

He pulls down the canister, and there’s Maxwell House facing him in big white letters, slightly different from the one he remembers but still with the _Good to the last drop!_ slogan.

Before he can stop it, a memory slides before his eyes, clear as if he were there all over again. He’s standing in the kitchen next to his mother. He touches the blue gingham pleats of her dress as they swish around her knees; they’re soft under his fingers. She reaches down to smooth his hair with one hand – in the other, she holds a can of Maxwell House – small and blue with red letters.

The smell of coffee fills the kitchen as she leans down to kiss his forehead. He wipes at the lipstick smear that he knows she’s left behind – it would just be another excuse for the bullies to seek him out. “Be good at school today, Stevie.” She presses a brown paper bag into his hand and shoos him out the door.

In Tony’s kitchen Steve clutches the canister, overcome with an ache so hard that his knees buckle. His back thumps against the cabinet and he slides down until he’s seated on the floor. The weight of loss feels as though it’s crushing his chest – it’s not just his mother. It’s everyone. Bucky, Peggy, Howard, the men of the 107th, an entire era – everything is lost to him.

It feels simultaneously like the roof has been torn from over his head and the ground’s fallen out from under his feet. He’s overwhelmed by the urge to hear Bucky’s carefree laugh, to see Peggy’s smile, for his mother’s soft words and gentle guidance, for a time when people looked at each other’s faces at the dinner table and not down at the glow of cellular phones.

He clutches the can to his chest and the tears come, streaming hot and fast down his cheeks, falling into his lap. He ducks his head and wills the feelings to pass, but they don’t. They simply bite at his heart, leaving him feeling hollow and aching, trapped in an era that perhaps he’ll never understand.

He’s aware of the footsteps to his left, and for a second he panics thinking about Natasha or Clint finding him like this and wipes furiously at the tears.

“Hey,” says a concerned voice. Steve can’t bring himself to lift his head because it’s Tony and he couldn’t bear Tony seeing him like this: wrecked and crying on the kitchen floor – hardly the image of Captain America.

“Hey, what’s wrong? What’s happened? JARVIS call f-”

“No,” Steve manages to say. “Nothing’s happened, Tony, I just…” His voice cracks and he stops talking. Tony sits next to Steve, presses against his side. Steve spins the canister between his fingers, willing himself to calm down before Tony tries to call SHIELD thinking he’s been compromised by Loki, because what else on Earth might make Captain America cry?

Instead he feels Tony’s arm slide around his shoulders, pulling him down, and Steve goes willingly. He places his face in the crook of Tony’s neck. The skin there is still warm and musky; Steve inhales deeply and snakes his arms around Tony’s waist.

“Okay there are stages to this thing, right?” Tony starts babbling. “How many again? Five? Seven? Denial, anger, depression and what’s the last one?”

Steve responds by sighing against Tony’s neck.

“Right. Shutting up now.”

And Tony does shut up. He stays quiet for several long minutes, holding Steve tight and steady. “It’s okay,” Tony says against the shell of his ear, and that’s all it takes for the gates to open again. He weeps against the collar of Tony’s shirt as his shoulders heave with sobs. Tony keeps repeating “it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,” and hugs Steve closer, holding him tight.

Steve’s not sure how long they stay like that. Coherent thought is overtaken by catharsis. He lets go, allows Tony to hold him, and Tony’s whispered reassurances make him believe that perhaps, someday, it just might be.

Eventually his sobs calm down and Tony’s hands run the length of his back. “Come on,” he says, rising to his knees. “Come with me.” He helps Steve to his feet, leads him to the bedroom, closes the door, guides Steve to the bed and sits down next to him.

And as if knowing exactly what it is that Steve needs, Tony says, “Whatever it is you need to talk about, I’m listening.”

For two hours Tony manages not to fiddle with his phone, speak to JARVIS, tap at his tablet, or interrupt Steve once while he tells stories. Steve talks about his mother and her easy smile, how her silhouette looked in the dark when she said bedtime prayers with him, and how she mended all of his scrapes and bruises. He talks about Bucky and how he described to Steve in graphic detail what women look like when they take all their clothes off, how they rode The Cyclone at Coney Island until they vomited, and the look of shock on his face after seeing Steve post-serum for the first time.

Steve talks about everything from how he thought Howard might have been _fondue-ing_ with Peggy (he sees Tony stiffen at the mention of his father’s name yet he remains quiet, intent on listening to Steve) to what a kitchen was like in 1940 to the first time he went to the cinema.

At the very end Tony simply cannot contain himself more and jumps in, asking clarifying questions, chattering away about Steve’s past and their present, how this is good that they’re talking because all this makes everything Bob-Ross-happy-trees and even Dr. Phil says you have to give your emotions free reign when you’re grieving (and adds _even though I loathe Dr. Phil, what a bloated, pompous windbag_ ), and then he stops talking, most likely because Steve’s given him the raised eyebrow that indicates Tony’s talking over his head again.

Steve knows, though, that Tony’s right; after talking about those he misses, the ache settles a bit. It doesn’t fully leave - it just lessens.

That night Steve curls around Tony’s back. He traces the over the arc reactor, down Tony’s stomach, hand settling on his hip. He might not be able to bring back those he’s lost, but he can certainly appreciate those he loves in the present.


End file.
